Blue Spirits: Travelers of the Books
by Pearlinprocess
Summary: Zuko is engaged and soon to be married to Mai, which he is mostly content about. Mostly. But then he finds himself mysteriously transported to another realm, and there he meets a otherworldly beauty named Azuma Hazuki. Will they be able to help each other find their homes again, or butt heads the entire time? Will eventually be Zuko/Hazuki but will end with Zuko/Mai. Please review!
1. A King Bows

It was three weeks before Prince Zuko of the Fire Kingdom was arranged to be getting married to his fiance and childhood friend, Mai. The materials for the celebration were lavish to say the least. The guest list had just been confirmed - Everyone who was anyone was coming, of course, including his old friends in the Aang Gang. It was almost eight months after he had been reunited with with his long lost mother and returned to rule his kingdom. In that time he had begged Mai for her forgiveness, and eventually she had forgiven him and come to love him again.

He'd never been happier, truly he hadn't. And yet, he was not completely content. Something sour was refusing to settle in his stomach and he just couldn't place it. He loved his fiance more than anyone else, he knew it. But finally settling down and getting married... It was a daunting prospect. He was nervous. Yes, he, the powerful Fire Lord, was scared of committing. He WAS still young, but then, when you were royal you grew up fast. Too fast. You didn't get to have the same experiences that other youths got to indulge in. He was sure he was fine with that, he had been for a long time. But every day that passed started to feel like he was getting closer to the end of his days, his palace began to feel more like a prison.

He began to suspect he'd go crazier than his sister if he didn't get out, for at least a little while, while he still could. So early one morning, well before the rise of the sun, he stole away under the cover of darkness. He managed to get out of the capital without incident and entered the nearest woods, where he breathed in deep the smell of it, the sap and the oils seeping out of the trees and the last of the dying fall flowers. It was the middle of autumn and the leaves were mostly yellow and red, which he could see clearly now that the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon.

Despite everything he had gone through to restore his honor and be accepted back into his homeland, there were some days when Zuko wished that, just once, he could leave it all behind. But it was no use. He wasn't just some nobody who could go off wandering into the world and not be recognized, not anymore. He had responsibilities, so many, and more were being piled on his plate every day. Even if he escaped to the furthest corner of the globe, even if he wanted to, he knew it was futile. His life was planned out for him from here on out, all that was left was for him to accept it.

The sun was rising ever higher. If he didn't get back soon his advisers would probably begin to start having panic attacks. Tempting though it was to sit back and let them, Zuko instead sighed and got to his feet, dusting the dirt off his bottom before starting back towards the path home.

But before he'd taken a single step, an unusually strong wind suddenly blew past him. A simple gust was hardly a shocking thing to experience, but less than a second before there had not even been a gentle breeze, and now the wind was so strong it was nearly pushing him back. Alarmed, Zuko tried to turn his head back towards the source of the wind, wondering if perhaps Aang had arrived early - He couldn't think of any other person who could make the wind do this. But the gust was so strong it blew his lengthy hair in his eyes, obscuring his view, and in the next instant the wind had become even stronger. It did push him off his guard and the next thing he knew his whole world was spinning out of control, literally.

Fallen leaves danced around him as he spun, and as he did he almost felt as if the entire planet were spinning with him. The mostly yellow leaves were peppered with red leaves, but then the next thing he knew, all the leaves had turned red, and then the next second all the leaves had turned bright spring green, as if time itself was being spun in the opposite direction. He was already beyond disoriented when the leaves changed color once more, now into a deep, dark blue.

The blue leaves continued to swirl around him, then they slowed, and finally they fluttered away to the ground. Zuko staggered, dizzy and confused, trying to get his eyes to stop rolling. He managed to stumble against a nearby tree (the bark was almost white instead of the usual shade of brown) and used the stable wood to lean against while he caught his breath, which he was quick enough to do, expecting an attack. He looked around him in several directions, becoming more and more alarmed by the minute. If it weren't strange enough that the yellow Autumn leaves had turned a shade of blue he'd never seen anywhere else before, in any of the four nations, the rising sun was now setting on the opposite horizon.

He noticed something else in the distance of the opposite horizon too, and it was even more unexpected than everything else he'd seen so far. It was a woman, a woman who bore a kind of beauty Zuko had never quite experienced before. He had seen hundreds of beautiful women, surely, beautiful in all different kinds of ways. But the beauty of this woman was a very different sort, it hardly seemed like it could truly be possible for a real, earthly woman to be so lovely, and in fact, the moment Zuko laid eyes on her he was convinced she was not human at all.

Her eyes were the most striking shade of blue Zuko had ever seen. Katara's eyes were the only ones he could even compare them to, but they were bluer than the shade of Katara's eyes even if they reflected all the deep blue seas to be sailed in their world, and they stared at Zuko as if all those seas had frozen over into jagged ice. Her skin was flawless and pale peach colored without a single blemish to be seen anywhere. Her legs were long and proudly stood straight, and her hair, the only feature of hers more lovely than her eyes, was longer than he'd seen any other woman grow her hair out, and reached down well past her knees. The color was an ethreal shade of dark blue. Perhaps it could be confused for plain black in darkness, but with the last light of the setting sun directly behind her, the blue in her hair glimmered off the shiny silken strands.

There were several kinds of reactions Zuko was inclined to have, but he was still mostly confused. First with the yellow-red leaves turning to an unheard of shade of blue, then the sudden shift in time, and now the beautiful blue woman before him - A thought suddenly came to him and he found he couldn't shake it from his mind. Who else could she be, looking like she did, arriving as she had?

Zuko, the Fire Lord, ruler of all the Fire Nation and warrior of legend, sank to his knees and bowed his head to the ground.

The young woman was just as confused as he was now. She had nearly been about to draw the unusually long sword that hung by her side, the hilt of which was decorated with a golden crescent moon, until the stranger before her bowed to the ground, seemingly no longer a threat to her. She wasn't entirely convinced though. She had traveled many, many worlds and there had been many times and places where something that seemed harmless turned out to be deadly. She did not draw her sword yet, but she kept her hand near it as she slowly approached the bowing king.

"What are you doing here?" She asked once she was sure she was close enough for him to hear her. This world didn't have many humanoids in it, and those she had seen so far looked nothing like this person. He was clearly out of his element here, in more ways than one.

Still bowing, not daring to look up at her otherworldly beauty, Zuko answered her, "Please forgive me, Blue Spirit. I don't know how I got here, but I didn't mean to trespass into your domain..."

The girl raised an elegantly thin navy eyebrow. "...What are you talking about."

Now that a few moments had passed since he'd been spun around like a pinwheel, his sense of balance and the rest of his senses had come back to him. He could smell the earth beneath his face and it smelled like regular dirt always had back home. He began to feel a little foolish. He slowly looked up at the maiden standing just a few feet away from him now, and he realized that despite her heavenly beauty, she was indeed just a human. "Uh... I..." He nervously began.

She rested her hands on her hips, leaning over and studying his face now that he wasn't hiding it anymore. He was humanoid, but he clearly wasn't from around these parts. She was rather new herself, but she'd not seen a single local wearing the kind of colors he bore, and she hadn't heard anything from the other locals about this spirit he spoke of. "Whatever the Blue Spirit is, I'm not her. My name is Azuma Hazuki." She explained simply, her stoic face betraying none of the interest she was actually feeling. "Who are you? You are not from this world." She stated surely.

He had just about figured as much for himself before she confirmed it, and he quickly got to his feet again, scowling to hide his own embarrassment. "This world?" He repeated heatedly. "I don't know what you mean by that. I am Zuko, Lord of the Fire Nation, and I demand you tell me what's going on!" It had been a while since he'd been quite that much of an ass to someone, but he was getting more and more worried by all this strangeness by the second, and now he was borderline panicking.

Hazuki glared back at him. She almost wanted to smirk too though, he was almost as amusing as he was infuriating. First he had bowed to her as if she were a goddess, and now he was barking orders at her? In the next instant, before he could even blink, she had drawn her sword and pointed it at him, the edge of the blade less than a foot from his person. "Get this straight, Zuko." She demanded back of him, daring to use only his first name as only a few choice individuals had ever done. "I am the Lord of Nothing. I'm a nobody here and I have been in every world I've set foot in." Not entirely the truth, but she felt it was. "But I don't take attitude like that from anybody no matter what they think they're king of. Got it?"

He was shocked, his golden eyes went wide. Virtually no one would dare point a weapon at him knowing who he was. But apparently Azuma Hazuki wasn't just a no one. Normally the threat of attack would put him more on edge, but the effect here was strangely the opposite. He put his hands up to pacify her, "H-Hey, calm down... I apologize. I'm just really confused right now..." He tried to explain.

She slowly lowered her sword, though she did not yet sheathe it. "Is this the first time this has ever happened to you?"

"I guess so? What DID happen to me?" He continued.

She look a breath and let it out in a slight huff. "I can't say how it happened, but like I said, you're in a different world now. And before you ask, no, I don't know how to get you back home."

His heart sank to the pit of his stomach, accepting what her words meant before his brain had actually caught up with the information. "Wait-" He wasn't sure at first what he was asking her to wait for. "How do you know?" He turned his head around to confirm whether or not the same path existed behind him that had been there just moments before. It was gone.

She let another huff. "Look, I know you're still in shock. But I also know you know I'm telling the truth. I know you knew you weren't back home in Kansas since the first second you got here."

"Kansas...?" He repeated in confusion.

"Nevermind that, it's just an expression where I'm from." She explained shortly. "I'm sorry, but I don't know what else to tell you. I don't even know how to get home myself, so I can't help you find yours."

The information she supplied sunk slowly into his mind. He looked down at the ground somberly, lost in his own thoughts. "...How long have you been gone from your world?" He finally inquired.

She didn't answer at first, looking a bit saddened herself. Finally she sheathed her unusually long sword and sighed. "It would probably only depress you to know."

"Tell me." He confirmed, quickly adding, "Please." Before she changed her mind about keeping her sword put away.

She sighed. Well, he was asking for it. "I was fifteen when I first disappeared from home. I'm eighteen now."

Zuko's breath caught in his throat and he almost choked on it. "Three YEARS?"

She glared at him, "Congratulations, you can count." She was being much nicer to this young man than she usually was with men in general, but he was starting to annoy her now.

Zuko didn't have the patience to be insulted, "This is serious! I can't be gone that long, I'm supposed to be getting married in three weeks!"

Her expression softened somewhat after hearing that. "...I really am sorry, Zuko. If it's any consolation, time doesn't exactly work the same way in these in-between worlds as it does in fixed locations. You could be gone for years like me and still get back in time for your wedding. Then again though," She added quickly. "You could end up a hundred years before or after it..."

He groaned and rubbed his forehead, "Thanks Hazuki. That makes me feel WAY better..."

"Well, it's not my job to make you feel better." She snapped back at him.

He sighed and ran the hand that had been rubbing his forehead up through his hair, which had been made messy and wild by the wind. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me like we're both people who do a lot better on our own than with other people..."

She shrugged. "You're not wrong."

He rolled his eyes. "Right. Well, it also seems to me like you've been in this situation a lot longer than I have and know more about what's going on than I do... I'd really like to not be totally alone in this new world, but if you'd prefer we went our separate ways, that's fine too..."

She considered his request for a lengthy moment, then finally she shrugged again and turned her head away from him. "You seem like a big boy, Zuko. You can handle yourself."

The rejection stung, and it made him a little angry, but he bit it back. "Fine. That's fine. Have a nice life then, Hazuki." He told her, turning on his heel and heading back in the direction from whence he'd come and leaving her to do whatever she liked.

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(Author's notes: If there is seriously a single person out there who likes both of these fandoms, please review and let me know. XD)


	2. Two Heads are Better than One

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Hazuki headed off in her own direction, not worried about the snobby lord she'd just crossed paths with. True, she didn't meet other world-hoppers like her often, and she was curious about him - But as the saying went, curiousity killed the cat. It was better to keep him at a distance. Men were nothing but a pain in the ass, anyways.

After walking for about twenty minutes or so Hazuki came across an expansive waterfall. It was a gorgeous scene. Many of the plants in this world, as well as many of the people, were colored blue, but the flowers growing around this waterfall were blood red. Hazuki vaguely wondered why, but didn't think too much about it. They reminded her of Hatsumi's eyes.

Plus she was thirsty, so why not take a drink? She'd seen the locals collect water from a stream nearby their village, so she figured the water here, which looked clear and fresh, was fine too. But she didn't know that the blue people of this world specifically never visited this very waterfall, and for a very good reason...

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Zuko was annoyed. He didn't need anyone's pity, but that Hazuki was almost as frigid as her icy blue eyes. Oh well, he had more important things to worry about, like getting out of here. Of course, how he was going to achieve that when he didn't even know how he'd gotten there to begin with was anyone's guess. But he wasn't about to go searching out Hazuki for her help, not after she'd clearly given him the cold shoulder. He was too proud for that.

But after wandering through the woods for a short time Zuko quickly realized he was only getting himself lost. This was no elaborate prank, nobody had hidden or replaced the path back to the Fire Nation capital, it was truly not there at all.

He was just starting to wonder what he could actually do about the situation at hand when the silent air was suddenly violated by a horrendous sound. It was hard to tell if it was more like a roar or a screech, but it was big, and it was angry. He looked back towards the way he'd been walking from, where Hazuki presumably still was, and took a second or two to have a moral dilemma over it. The snide side of him had to comment, "Hazuki is a big girl, she can take care of herself..." But clearly whatever it was that had made that sound was much bigger than her, and he knew he couldn't feel okay in the long run about leaving her to face whatever it was alone. Even if she didn't appreciate his help, he would lend it to her.

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Hazuki stood at the edge of the shore, scooped a handful of the mirror-esque water and brought it to her dry lips, sipping slowly at it and listening to the tranquil chirping of the bluebirds. But then suddenly a rumbling could be heard, originating underneath the water, and all the birds took flight at once, squawking fearfully. Hazuki was only just beginning to think to herself, "What's going on-?" When the water before her quite literally exploded, showering her and everything else in the immediate area. In the midst of the unnatural rain, a gigantic serpent rose it's head above everything except for the towering waterfall. The water beneath was apparently much deeper than it looked, because the snake was almost impossibly huge. The part of it that had emerged from the water alone had to be over thirty feet long, and it's mouth was more than big enough to swallow her whole. By the hungry stare in its eyes, that seemed to be just what it was thinking of.

She stared mutely at it for just a second, still as a corpse, hoping that perhaps it wouldn't see her if she didn't move. No such luck. It stared at her intensely for just a second itself before its mouth opened, full of long, sharp, slimy fangs, and let out of horrifying screech. In the next second it's huge head had lunged at her. With her ninja-like reflexes she managed to leap out of the way just in time, leaving the serpent with a mouthful of dirt.

She'd barely managed to unsheath her sword before it had recovered from the miss and lunged after her again. It was nearly upon her in a second and she only had time to do one thing - She held out the blade of the sword horizontally and the front two fangs of the serpent clashed against it. She secured her footing but the creature was huge and it managed to push her back several feet, her shoes digging into the dirt. It would soon overpower her, so she quickly dove to the side. The serpent, surprised by the strength in the small person, hit a tree that had been behind her, propelled by itself when she was no longer pushing him back. It thrashed in fury as it realized one of its fangs had chipped from the impact.

While it was distracted by the pain, Hazuki had hopped onto it's scaly back and was running at full speed up it's spine. Once she reached the slimmer end of his neck closest to it's head, she jumped up into the air and brought her sword up above her head. With a warrior's cry, she brought her magically energized katana down upon the serpent, severing it's head in one fell swoop.

The rest of the body crashed to the ground and went still. She caught her breath and looked up, and from the forest a familiar red-clad male had appeared. He stared at her wide eyed for a few seconds, not really sure if he was seeing right. He had assumed Hazuki wouldn't carry around a sword that long if she didn't know how to use it, but damn, did she know how to use it.

She calmly hopped off the back of the snake and approached him. "What, did you forget something?" She asked coolly, flipping her long, disheveled hair over her shoulder.

He sighed and gave her a weak glare. "I heard that thing roar. I thought you might have needed some help..."

How chivalrous he was. It made him twice as annoying to her. "Well, as you can see, I do-" She had been about to say 'don't', but a loud gurgling noise distrated her. They looked behind her where the body of the serpent was starting to writhe again. The bleeding wound was steaming and bubbling and to her horror, two serpentine heads sprouted from the open wound to replace the one she had just severed.

"-Shit." She amended, quickly turning on her heel and sprinting away, grabbing Zuko's hand and dragging him along with her. They were both very fast on their feet, but the creature was right behind them the entire time.

"Hey!" He ran along behind her, not having much of a choice for the time being. "What are you doing? I thought you had that snake thing taken care of!"

She scowled her displeasure back at him. "Well I don't, okay? And it's not a snake, I just realized! It's a Hydra!"

Zuko was again confused. "Never heard of it!"

Hazuki growled out a sigh. "It's SUPPOSED to be a mythical creature, but I guess nobody ever told him that! If you keep cutting off its heads, two more will replace every one! It's hopeless to try and fight it, it will only get stronger!"

Zuko gaped at her, "You've got to be kidding!" One of the two heads made a sudden lunge at him, just barely missing again and nearly nipping at his heels. "Then how the hell are we supposed to kill it?!"

The first head spat the dirt it had accidentally swallowed out at the second head, and the two stopped following their prey for a brief moment to quarrel amongst themselves about it. Hazuki took the opportunity to drag Zuko behind a large tree to rest and hide. "There's only one way to kill a Hydra..." She informed him breathlessly. "After you cut off the head, you have to cauterize the wound before the next heads can grow..."

He blinked at her, an infuriating smirk starting to stretch out the corners of his lips. "Cauterize... As in, burn it? With fire?"

"Yes, burn it!" She confirmed distractedly, searching her pockets. She had a book of matches on hand, but she and everything on her had been soaked to the bone when the Hydra had emerged from the water and sprayed her. Not that some measly matches would have helped her against the massive serpent anyways.

"You don't say..." His smirk was now nearly a full grin, and it didn't go away even when the two serpent heads emerged, one on each side, from behind the tree, hissing two mouthfuls of fangs at them. Hazuki held her sword out, but before she could act, Zuko took over. A stream of flames errupted from his mouth, right into the faces of the twin Hydras. They shrieked and flailed their heads in their air, blinded.

Hazuki was almost as shocked as they were, staring at Zuko wide eyed. He narrowed his eyes at her but continued to smirk about it. "Well, now do you need my help?"

She blushed and turned her head away. "Need? No." She insisted stubbornly, but then she sighed. "But... I would appreciate it..."

"Ladies first!" He instructed her rather cheerfully. Beautiful women usually always had the upper hand on men, and he'd felt a little put off before. It was satisfying to know that she now knew he wasn't as useless as she had assumed.

But she wasn't about to let him hog the glory, either. "Right! Get ready then, firebreather!" She told him, sprinting after the flailing beast. It was thrashing so violently that the heads were banging against each other, on the ground and against trees. She expertly maneuvered around the heads as they beat themselves on the ground, nearly hitting her several times but never managing to quite squish the bothersome blue bug.

She somersaulted the last few feet of the way, then once again hopped on the back of the beast and began running up it's backside. However, though both heads were still blinded, one of them felt her movements and turned around, attempting to strike at her. She leaped right over the offending head, turned on her heel and swung the sword at it, severing the head. Then she continued on her way towards the second, bringing her sword up and then down on it's neck as well.

Zuko was quick to follow her, his body nearly engulfed by his flames. He threw ball after ball of fire at the open wounds, burning them until they were blackened to charcoal. The body squirmed for a moment, but finally it fell still, definitely dead.

They took several moments to catch their breath, and to make sure Hazuki's theory about the Hydra was correct. But it stayed dead, and stayed down.

After wiping the blood on her sword off on the grass and sheathing it, Hazuki finally looked towards the barely taller man, blushing. "Hey, thanks. I couldn't have done it without you..." She was compelled to admit.

He was about to answer in kind, but they were interrupted by the sound of applause. They looked back where a group of the blue humanoid locals had gathered. Some were a lighter shade of blue like periwinkle, others were the darkest shade of navy blue on the spectrum, and there was nearly every other color blue in between. Some were tall and some were short, but they all had long pointed ears and very little clothing. They cheered for the strange pair who had just become their heroes in their native tongue, and their children began gathering the red flower petals from the side of the waterfall and showering the pair with them like confetti. Zuko rubbed the back of his head awkwardly and Hazuki blushed a little, accepting the praise wordlessly.

One of the womenfolk, one of the darker blue shades, came up to them and bowed, and said something slowly to Hazuki, who in turn interpretted for Zuko, "They want to hold a feast in our honor..."

Well, why not? He hadn't had breakfast yet. Although it was apparently suppertime now...

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(( Omg, I can't believe this obscure crossover actually got a review! I'm so excited! =D I'm so glad you decided to give it a try and I hope you enjoyed chapter 2! And yes, I hope you give Yamibou a chance too. You can actually find all thirteen episodes for free on youtube, so when you got the time you should give it a try! Just to warn you though, there is a loooot of girl on girl fanservice... XD Also I'm not much of an artist but I did a quick pic of Zuko and Hazuki. You can find the link on my profile. ^^ ))


	3. The Vindictive Goddess

The people of the blue world prepared a feast of various colored foods, but yes, many of them were blue. But some were yellow and orange and red, and there was plenty of salad greens. Some were nuts or seeds and some were creamy concoctions, but there was few of anything that remotely looked like or resembled meat in any way, except for a tentacle-looking thing that truly looked and somewhat tasted like an octopus leg to Zuko, but Hazuki told him it was actually a root of some kind that came from a swamp a few miles to the East. But then she handed him some jars of pickled fish that tasted more or less like tuna with a hint of something fishier, and something that looked like navy blue jerky, and she indeed claimed it was dried jerky meat. It was made from some type of giant oyster, which was apparently extremely rare and hard sought for, being many miles away from the ocean shore and very cumbersome to bring back to shore and prepare. But they needed meat occasionally and seafood was apparently the only meat the blue people would eat.

All of the food was pretty okay, some even good, all a little too weird for his usual tastes but acceptable on an empty stomach. Zuko didn't care for the oyster jerky but he ate it anyways to not offend. There were sweet creamy dishes in yellow, pink and blue colors, the pink and blue tasting like berries and the yellow tasting like vanilla with just a hint of banana, all three of which were pretty good. He tried to just enjoy them and not think about what potentionally gross stuff they might be made of, especially since Hazuki didn't shy from the feast, and he was extra hungry.

Once they had been sated some of the blue people began to dance and sing for them, and the pair politely watched. They were a gentle race with a dreamy sway to their moves and a lullaby to their notes, but Zuko was in no mood to go back to sleep just yet. He needed to know more about his mysterious temporary ally Azuma Hazuki.

When she began to retreat from the festivities, Zuko followed her, and she let him, just until they were just beyond the village of the blue people, even though they couldn't understand them anyways. Then she turned and faced him, "What do you want from me, Zuko?" She asked, "I suppose you expect something in return for your help earlier?"

"I would appreciate it." Zuko quipped back, glancing down at her katana. "Fancy sword... Makes me think you were well to do in your original world. A noblewoman of some kind?" He inquired back.

She relented, but only slightly, she wasn't about to tell him her life story before he told her his. "Of some kind." She admitted. "My parents were both doctors, they did well financially. And yours were lords of some kind?" She asked back, throwing the ball in his court so to speak, and just to make it extra personal, since of course it was something she'd noticed from the start but had been polite enough not to ask about so far, she added, "And how did you get that scar? Some valiant battle?" She guessed, "Or just you blowing up in your own face? How do you do all your fireworks anyways?" She added.

His look hardened noticeably. "My mother and father were lords, yes. Fire lords, of the Fire Nation, where many of my people are known for being able to bend the power of fire. We're called Firebenders. And it just so happens that my father is also the cause of this scar."

"I get the impression it wasn't an accident..." She mentioned more quietly.

He slowly shook his head. "My homeland was at war for many years before and after my birth. The war only ended recently... My father found my aversion to fighting to be a despicable weakness, and punished me for it." He reached up and lightly felt at the edges of his old scar. "He told me the only way to redeem my honor would be to find the Avatar, basically a god in human form who is the sole master of all four elements, who was destined to end the war my nation started. It was initially a fool's task, the Avatar had been lost for a hundred years and believed to be dead, but I really did find him, and eventually, after almost doing completely the wrong thing and betraying him at first, I teamed up with the Avatar to help bring the war to an end." He took a long sigh after his brisk but deep description of his life and it's purpose thusfar. "So, what about you, Hazuki? How did you get here?" He added before she could ask him any more questions.

She took a deeper, longer sigh than him, looking elsewhere. She was quiet for a moment, considering just what to tell him. "...Basically, I royally pissed off this goddess named Lilith, and she's been punishing me ever since by throwing me into different worlds, to mess with me." She finally admitted.

He raised an eyebrow at her, "How did you manage that? Did you not know she was a goddess when you pissed her off?"

"No, I knew she was..." Zuko began to give her a look that clearly read 'Well that wasn't very smart of you then', and she glared at him to let him know to keep that opinion to himself. "She was very different when I first met her. She didn't seem like a goddess at all, she acted like a ditzy, brainless blonde. I didn't take her seriously, and she liked me back then, so I didn't think much of her supposedly being a goddess. I never imagined she was as powerful and as vengeful as she turned out to be..."

"How did you meet her?" He continued to inquire, interested by her tale. "What did you do to make her angry?"

Hazuki sighed again, gathering her thoughts. She rarely spoke to other people much at all, so it was somewhat tiring to do so now. At the same time though, it had been a rather long time since she'd spoken to someone who shared her language, let alone her unique predicament, and she found herself willing to share. "I first met her when I disappeared from my world. My home..." She began, "On her sixteenth birthday, my sister Hatsumi disappeared into a flash of green light, a spiritual energy which this sword and I were bathed in... I loved my sister, more than anything..." Guilt stabbed at her as she admitted that. "I vowed to find her no matter what, and at first Lilith was a great help to me. She allowed me entry into different worlds to look for Hatsumi. She was really annoying though, always touching me and flirting with me, I wanted to hit her sometimes." She gave him a particularly intense glare, as if to let him know not to try anything either. "When I finally found Hatsumi, I was so excited to see her again, I abandoned Lilith without a second thought about her or her feelings for me, which I had assumed were nothing serious. It offended her greatly. Admittedly, I was unnecessarily cruel to her..." She looked disappointed with herself now.

"But you found your sister? What happened then?" He asked it as gently as he could, knowing that the fact that Hazuki was alone now couldn't mean anything good.

"...She wouldn't come back with me." She answered quietly, fighting back a lump that was forming in her throat. "It just so happens... My sister Hatsumi was a goddess herself. Her true name was Eve. She came to my world only to visit, she never intended to stay..."

"Even after all that you did for her?" Zuko asked, shocked and a little sorry for her.

She shook her head, "All that I did only made things worse. I was a presumptuous mortal and I deserve Lilith's punishment..."

"You got that right."

Zuko and Hazuki both gasped as everything around them suddenly went pitch black, and then emerged into a dimension of perfect blank whiteness. The blue people and their blue plants and everything from the past world was gone. The only thing that existed in this world besides the two youths was the person who had just interrupted their conversation, a person who looked stranger than just about every other person Zuko had ever seen. Like Hazuki she was incredibly beautiful, but her beauty only made her look unreal. She had long, curly blonde hair and an enormous witch's hat perched on top of that hair, in which was a gigantic staring eyeball. In her hands she held a riding crop in a rather menacing way, especially with how she was smirking at the two.

"I'm so glad to see you're finally learning some humilty, Ha-Zu-Ki-Chaaaan~!" She sing-songed in a rather insulting manner. "You're really much prettier when you're defeated, submissive and heartbroken, you know..." The goddess giggled and slapped the riding crop against her own thigh, suggestively licking her lips.

Hazuki looked at the blonde woman for a moment as if she wanted to kill her. But instead she drew in a long breath and sighed it out, calming her nerves before she spoke. "I have your payment ready, Lady Lilith..."

"As if I didn't know that already!" She scoffed back at the teenage swordswoman. "You'd still be in that lousy little backwater world if you didn't!" She 'hmmph'ed and rested one of her hands on her hips.

Hazuki pretended as if she hadn't heard her, approaching the goddess and bowing down to her knees before her. There she reached into her pockets and pulled out a rather sharp, curved object - The tip of a fang of the Hydra they had defeated earlier, Zuko realized - And a handful of the red petals that had been growing by the waterfall it resided in.

"Aha~!" The goddess lit up with delight at the sight of the objects presented to her. "The vemon in this fang and the oils from these flowers will make an amazing skin tonic!"

Zuko had been silent so far, but he had to gape at her then. "You had her fight that gigantic snake-thing just so you could make a beauty product?" Was anyone really that vain?

The goddess gave him a bored glare. "Like Hazuki, you clearly understand NOTHING about beauty or fashion - Are you wearing pajamas right now, by the way?" She motioned towards his current ensemble with a mocking giggle. It was a very fancy royal robe, but she was right, it was just a robe and essentially they were pajamas, no matter how fancy they were. He blushed furiously and promptly shut up after that.

"Lady Lilith." Hazuki spoke up before Zuko could get himself in trouble too. "I implore you for your mercy. Let Zuko go home."

"Oh, Hazuki~" Lilith sighed, "You know it's not that easy..."

"It could be that easy, if you wanted it to be..." She replied bitterly.

"Yeah, but I DON'T." Lilith returned with an annoyed scowl. "Why should I do anything for free? He has his own payments to make."

Hazuki glanced back at Zuko, who looked unnerved. He already knew that Lilith wouldn't want all the gold in his kingdom even if he offered it to her, but he didn't have time to be running around doing errands like Hazuki had been doing for the past three years, either.

"PLEASE, Lady Lilith." Hazuki insisted when she looked back at the goddess. "It's one thing to punish me. I deserve it and no one in my world probably even noticed I'm gone. Zuko is in charge of an entire country. People depend on him, and he has a fiance waiting to marry him. Please, I beg you. Let him go home and I'll make his payments for him."

Lilith blinked in considerable surprise at her offer, as did Zuko. "Wow, Hazuki! That sure is a generous offer! But then you owe me so damn many payments, what's a few more? Still, that is an awfully nice thing to do for a total stranger..." She suddenly glared deeply at Hazuki, her hate more obvious than even that unblinking eyeball that stared at them in her hat. "You'd do something like that for him, but you can't even bring yourself to love me? That really chaps my ass, Hazuki." For good measure as she said this, she reached behind the Japanese teenager and quickly smacked her buttcheeks smartly with the riding crop.

Hazuki went rigid and her face went almost as red as Zuko's face was, but otherwise she didn't react. "Please, Lady Lilith..." She repeated quietly.

"I FORBID IT!" Lilith cut her off, nearly about to throw a tantrum, but in the next second, she was completely calm again, eerily so. "I'm not completely unreasonable, though..." She smirked and held out the fang in front of Hazuki's eyes. "Since your little burn ward boyfriend was really the one who defeated the Hydra, I'll count this fang as one of his payments instead of yours." She turned her back on Hazuki and gave her attention back to Zuko. "And YOU... Don't think just because you're a prince that you're above paying the price of your own sins, boy."

Zuko seethed silently. No one ever dared to call him a boy even when he WAS a boy, especially not like she had just said it. But he bit his tongue, not wanting to make things worse for himself.

Lilith went on, "Including this, you've got seven payments to make me before I let you go home. You're actually getting off easy here, at least compared to Hazuki. She's probably never going to pay me back what she owes me, that's why she was so quick to offer to take your payments for you, so don't think it was because she likes you or anything like that. There's only one person in all the worlds that the cold-hearted Hazuki burns for, and that person-"

"SHUT UP, LILITH!" A red-faced Hazuki suddenly yelled at her, much to Zuko's shock. She had been so submissive and formal towards the goddess so far, but apparently she had finally stepped on a sensitive issue that Hazuki wasn't willing to let her trespass upon.

Lilith at first stared at her in silent surprise, but she soon burst out into mocking giggles. "Don't get your panties all twisted up, Hazuki! I'll let you tell him yourself. Someone as grotesque and shameful as you can't hide your ugliness for long, after all..." She smirked again, though there was no mirth within her. "Now, now, what kind of world should I toss you into this time... A lake of lava? A jagged stone forest? No wait, I think I've got the perfect thing for you..." She trailed off with a wicked grin, and snapped her fingers.

Though there had been no ground beneath their feet, it felt as if it had been pulled out from under them, and the two youths descended through a rabbit hole of blackness until they landed unceremoniously in the middle of a dark, unopened shopping mall. A stuffed coin purse fell from the sky and landed on Zuko's head, and Lilith's giggling voice followed after it, "See? I'm not really that mean after all~ Buy what you need with that, but as for my payment, it'll have to be something money can't buy..." After that her voice trailed off into an echo and eventually disappeared.

Zuko groaned, rubbing his sore spots. "Where are we now?"

"How should I know?" Hazuki replied sourly, "At least it's not a lake of lava..."

Zuko had to relent that was indeed a better thing than not, and he looked over at the blue haired girl and her bright red blush, which could be seen even in the darkened room. "Hey... Thanks for trying to help me out back there."

Hazuki didn't look at him, but he could see her blush was spreading. "It's not a big deal. I owed you one for helping me beat that Hydra anyways."

"No you didn't." He answered her surely, "And anyways, you were willing to take on seven payments for me for just that one favor..."

Hazuki cut him off, "Like Lilith said! Don't think I like you or something because of that! I was only trying to help you to help your people-"

"I know." Zuko interrupted her back. "I know, and that's what I want to thank you for. Even if it didn't work, I really appreciate it."

She calmed down and huffed away her annoyance. "...Don't mention it. Now come on, lets hide until this place opens. Then we can buy you some proper clothes so you won't be walking around in your pajamas all day, your majesty."

He blushed and glared back at her, "Hey, these pajamas just so happen to be made of the finest-"

She rolled her eyes, "They're still pajamas!"

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(I hope to have the next chapter out soonish, but in the meantime if anyone is curious the full list of fandoms our "travelers" Zuko and Hazuki will eventually visit is posted at archiveofourown dot org. Hope you enjoy and if you do please comment! :D)


	4. Intermission on Some Earth or Another

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After the mall opened a couple hours later, Hazuki first led Zuko through the shops for menswear to help him pick out something that would look normal for men his age in this world and still cater to Zuko's style. He was being somewhat picky about it until Hazuki mentioned she could just as well be putting him in women's clothing and he wouldn't be any wiser, so finally he let her pick out some black jeans and some red and black t-shirts for him, though he clearly wasn't impressed with how they looked on him, he looked considerably more normal than he did in his royal pajamas.

After that Zuko mentioned he was getting hungry, so Hazuki bought him a cinnamon bun-pretzel and an orange smoothie for breakfast and left him to eat it at the food court while she went shopping for some new clothes for herself. To say she was long overdue would be a gross understatement. She kept her clothes and person as clean as she could considering most of the worlds she'd visited lately did not have any sort of plumbing, but she'd been wearing the same schoolgirl uniform for three whole years - The most pressing problem was of course that she was outgrowing it, but she also realized she was a full grown adult by now - If she'd been left in her own world she would have graduated months ago. She wondered again for probably the thousandth time whether or not her parents were saddened about her disappearance, or if Lilith had indeed erased their memories of her as she had claimed. It was hard to tell when Lilith was telling the truth or just messing with her, though.

Hazuki ended up picking out a pair of blue jeans for herself, a baby blue button-up shirt and a navy blue sweater, which she changed into. She also decided on a long, flowing red skirt and a maroon colored sweater, some extra underwear and a new bra, and an indigo one-piece bathing suit, which she carried in a bag. After that she returned to the food court to pick up Zuko, who was staring at a child who was playing in one of those coin-operated rides, this one being shaped like an airplane.

"I don't get it." He mentioned as he saw her approach. "It's literally doing nothing but moving fowards and backwards two inches. What's so fun about that?"

Hazuki shrugged, "I don't know, Zuko. I didn't have much of a childhood either..."

Zuko couldn't help but notice, "You look gloomier than usual..."

She sighed as she sat down next to him at his table. "Worlds like these always depress me. They look almost just like my world, but they're not... I come from a dimension where a single tiny planet exists that can support life, but it is surrounded on all sides by dead space. Many simply call it Earth. Many of the people of Earth believe it to be the only life-sustaining planet in the universe, and it is, in OUR universe, in OUR dimension. But what they don't know is, there are countless copy-dimensions of Earth. Many of them are almost exactly the same, too, with only very small differences from one to the next. And some have bigger and bigger differences and some places are as much unlike Earth as they are like Earth, and some are completely unlike Earth. I have a feeling you're from one of those places." She smiled a little as nostalgia swept through her mind. "Earth is a funny place. Many versions of Earth have no magic, and just as many others do have magic, it's just hidden. Some people on Earth get psychic transmissions or are sometimes even transported directly to and from other worlds and write them down as stories, but they're actually real worlds. For example, there was a book I read as a child called 'Alice in Wonderland' and another called 'The Wizard of Oz', and I never thought they were anything but made-up stories, but I actually visited the worlds of Wonderland and Oz last year. Wonderland is a place I probably wouldn't want to visit again, there's no order, it's too chaotic - But Oz was nice, even if it was strange, it had structure to its silliness." She sighed romantically without realizing it. "Dorothy Gale was so beautiful, she actually looked kind of like my sister Hatsumi in person... And Queen Ozma was a beacon of magical order in the madness of her world, she was truly inspiring to behold..."

Zuko of course didn't get the reference, but he gave ger a brief half-smile after sipping the last of his orange smoothie. "It's good that you can have fun, even when you're sad and lonely too... How many more payments do you owe Lilith?" He asked offhandedly, wondering if Hazuki had a chance of going home anytime soon. If he was so bad and only owed 7 payments, how much more could the noble Hazuki owe for her minor transgressions?

Hazuki slowly sighed. "Lilith originally said one thousand and one. But there's been a few times where she's said she'd add or subtract to that, so really, she basically has me as long as she wants to keep messing with me. Could be a few months, years, or maybe never..."

He huffed a little. "I don't get it. What, did you burn down any villages, Hazuki? Kidnap or kill anybody?"

"No, of course not!" Hazuki was quick to defend herself.

"Then you don't deserve the harsh punishment you're getting..." He trailed off.

Hazuki was quiet for a moment, then tugged on the sleeve of his shirt as she got up from her seat. "There's a saying where I'm from. 'War is hell'... I've known plenty of good people who've had to do terrible things at wartime. I'm not saying I trust you're really a good person just yet, but I won't judge you alone based on what you had to do at war."

He was briefly touched, but then he remembered that he too had no reason yet to trust Hazuki any more than she trusted him, so simply shrugged, "So if so many of these worlds look so similar to yours, how do you know you're not in your own world again?"

Hazuki shook her head, and held up her sword to him. "If I was in my real world again, this sword would once again be the mere letter opener that it was in my world. Plus, my world is like my mother... I couldn't mistake her for another, even if they looked very similar, I'd know the difference... Come on now, follow me." She instructed him.

He did indeed follow her, and she led him through the mall. She was originally intending to just walk out of the place, but she stopped as they were about to pass a candy store. She led him in, deciding to buy some to snack on later since she hadn't gotten breakfast herself. She picked out some lollies and rock candy, sweet and sour gummies, and then she came across the red hot cinnamon candies. She bought a few of those too and offered one of the bigger sized red hot jawbreakers she'd bought, about the size of quarter, to Zuko as they left.

"Do they have anything like these where you're from?" She asked as she handed it to him.

He looked at the ball quizzically for a moment, gingerly licking it before smiling. "Hey... Actually, yeah, we do. We call them Flaming Sugar Comets. Except, they're usually served like this..." Zuko popped the whole red ball into his mouth for a moment, sucking and swishing it around. The he pulled it out again and the candy came out of his mouth consumed by flame.

She smirked and waved it away, "Hey, put that back in your mouth. You don't want people in worlds like these to see you doing that fire stuff you do. It can be dangerous."

Zuko shrugged and blew the flame out before popping the candy back in his mouth. "Ooh, danger, I'm so scared..." He replied sarcastically.

"You may eventually take back those words." Hazuki warned him, leading him out of the mall. "Those who fear what they do not understand are ignorant and weak, but they are also many in number. There's a lot more of them than there are of us. Remember that."

They again began making their way through the mall, but then Zuko stopped as they were about to pass a novelty store. "Hey, they have weaponry in this store." He pointed out. It was a fantasy themed shop with various medieval and ninja style swords and weaponry.

Hazuki hated to burst his bubble early, so she followed him as he went inside and began to inspect their crafts. As she suspected, he immediately noticed their poor quality. "What the heck? This thing probably wouldn't last one real battle! Why even make a sword like this?"

"They're replicas." Hazuki informed him. "They're just for playing and costumes."

He balked, "That's just dumb! If you're going to make a sword at all, why make a useless sword?"

The shopkeep started to glare. Hazuki took the sword, a curvy Chinese broadsword with decorative red and green flags tied at the end of the hilt and a black scabbard, to the shopkeep and showed him her own. "My friend is rude, but he's right. I know you don't have anything as fine as my sword, but you must have something better than these display only pieces, and if you do, we are serious buyers and willing to pay for it."

Zuko spoke up, "I'm used to using dual swords."

The shopkeep's glare lessened as he marveled Hazuki's sword and considered the profit of selling two of his more expensive products. "This is one of the finest pieces I've ever seen, ma'am. You're right, I have nothing quite this fine, this is truly a masterpiece. But I have a few things that might be to your refined tastes. Follow me."

They did, and headed into the back of his shop. There were about ten cases in various black, brown and tan cases - He picked one of the black ones and one of the tan ones, and opened them. In them was essentially the same sword, the only difference was that one had a black scabbard and hilt, and the other was white. Both had the same gold designs on the scabbard and were slightly curved broadswords. Zuko picked up the white one and inspected the blade. It was still not to his tastes but it was indeed finer than anything else in the shop, not just in decoration but in craftsmanship. Depending on how he used them they might last a handful to a dozen battles in his hands. It was better than nothing for now. He finally nodded his approval and said he'd take them both, and the shop-keep hurried to ring them up. The total came to just over a thousand dollars, which left their coin purse almost half depleted.

Zuko carried the swords over his shoulders on straps as they began heading out the mall once again, then found themselves walking down the street with no particular place in mind to go. They passed a park and Hazuki once again stopped at an gelato vendor.

"I bet they don't have this kind of stuff in the Fire Kingdom." Hazuki guessed, giving him a chocolate one.

He tried it, "...Well, nothing exactly like this, no." He finally admitted, "But icy treats are actually just as popular as spicy ones in the Fire Kingdom."

"Oh, is that so..." Hazuki shrugged, taking a vanilla and strawberry one for herself. "Maybe your world has more in common with mine than not, after all."

Zuko shrugged back, "Maybe."

They finished their frozen desserts on a bench and discarded the disposable cups and spoons into the proper receptacles afterwards, and then Zuko sighed, utterly bored, "Hey, this world is real cushy and all, but I'm ready for more of that Hydra fighting stuff - Any idea where to go to find that?"

Hazuki gave any annoyed sigh, "Lilith's hints are usually more specific than 'something money can't buy', and we're in a world where almost anything can be bought, so..." She trailed off as she spotted something in the distance, across the street from the outskirts of the park - It was an antique bookshop. "...Hm. But I think I may have one idea, for now... Lilith is the guardian of a gigantic mystical library, where her books contain entire worlds... And in Earth worlds, we are usually connected to other worlds only by books..." She didn't explain anymore, she just let him follow her as she headed out of the park and across the street to the bookshop. Inside it was completely full of books - Every shelf was full and there were some plastic tubs full of books next to the shelves too. Besides being full of books though, it was empty of humans, except for one grouchy-looking old man, presumably the owner.

He turned as he heard the bell on his door jingle, and blinked in surprise at the two strange-looking youths that stepped inside. "...I don't sell fashion or punk rock magazines or any of those god-awful new bestsellers about vampires or whatever kids like you are into nowadays, so look elsewhere if that's what you're hoping to find here..." He grumpily informed them.

Hazuki liked the old curmudgeon already. He reminded her of her grandpa. Hell, he reminded her of her grandma a little bit too. Zuko wasn't as impressed, so he let Hazuki do the talking. "Sorry, we're not actually sure what we're here to find, we just came in to look..." She informed him as politely as she could in return.

The old man shifted his spectacles and sniffed. "Well you may as well. I'm surprised you kids don't have those newfangled Kindies or whatever they're called. Bah. Technology will do what it will, and I'll eventually go out of business thanks to it, but I'll always prefer the feel and the smell and the sight of a real book to those i-books or e-books or whatever they are..."

Hazuki bowed her head and ducked around him as he lamented his fate, skimming over the spines on the shelves and the tops of the piles of books in the bins - He had hundreds of classics from "Treasure Island" to "Pride and Prejudice", but nothing stood out to Hazuki or inspired her particularly.

Until, she laid her blue eyes on an old leatherbound book by the front desk. The book looked old, but it had been well taken care of and had no damage. It had no title to be seen on the front, back or the spine, but it had the most curious metal symbol on the front of it of two snakes, one silver and one gold, writing around each other and eating each other's tails. Hazuki felt the strangest pull of familiarity to the book and it's symbol, a wave of nostalgia that she couldn't place. She didn't know or care what it contained, she knew instantly that this was what she had come for, she had to have it.

"That book is NOT for sale."

Hazuki was snapped out of it as the grouchy old man leaned against the counter next to her, tapping the book she was staring at and repeating himself. "This book is NOT for sale."

Hazuki blinked. "I'm sorry, but are you sure? I have plenty of money."

He shook his head, "I'm quite sure, young lady, and what's more-" He was about to rant at her again, but suddenly, fron the back of the store, a phone started to ring. The old man sighed and immediately went to get it, as he had been expecting an important call.

Hazuki waited until he was out of eye and ear-shot, then nudged Zuko's shoulder. "Hear that? Money can't buy this book..."

Zuko didn't need to be told twice, he nicked it right away. Hazuki however felt a little bit worse about stealing, and she pulled out the coin purse Lilith had given her and pulled out the rest of the bills and placed them on the counter. To her surprise the coin purse was magically full again as soon as she had emptied it, so she emptied it three times more before rushing out of the shop, leaving almost ten thousand dollars, which she hoped was fair enough.

The old man sighed as he got off the phone with his wife. She had been attending chemotherapy and it, on top of the failing business, had nearly cleaned them out of their savings. But then on top of that, their car had just broken down. It was stressful enough before that book, that book he was sure had vanished forever ago, suddenly appeared in his bookshop this morning. He wasn't sure what to do with it, but as he came to the front of his shop, he discovered that not only had the book taken care of itself, but so had his car trouble.

Bastian Balthazar Bux gave a tired smile as he closed up his shop, and wondered what that pretty blue eyed girl would name his Moon Child this time...

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End file.
